“Must be the ones that were following along the highway,” I said. “Mary, that’s pretty far from us, but with all this noise more may come from anywhere. You have to be able to hear it for miles around.”
“I’ll keep looking for them Jacob.”
I ignored the shambling corpses, keeping my attention on the raiders in the meadow. A small group was trying to get around the side of the castle, drawing near to us in the process. They ducked down, attempting to present the defenders with a difficult target, but I had a clear shot. The first was hit in the chest. The second I wounded in the upper leg. Then my rifle jammed.
“What is it?” asked Briana, as I slid behind a tree and tried to get the round out.
“Jammed up. I almost have it.”
“That’s good,” said Lizzy. “The one you didn’t shoot saw you and is running right for us.”
“Can you take care of him?” I asked. “I’m having some difficulties here.”
“On it.”
“Almost,” I muttered to myself. “Finally.”
The chamber was clear, and I turned to see what was happening just as Lizzy shot the raider from ten feet away. The shotgun blast hit him in the belly, nearly ripping the man in two.
“Lizzy,” I began, “you okay?”
“I’m fine. When you got up to fix the gun, I rolled over behind a tree and moved to the side. He never saw me, wasn’t paying attention. Got him as he went by. Easy, super easy.”
“True,” agreed Briana, from her position a few yards distant. “I had him in my sights too, but he was way closer to Lizzy.”
“Good enough. Damn it Lizzy!” I noticed where the raider had been standing when he was killed. “You got his insides all over my coat.” There was no way I was lying down on that again.
“Well, a fucking boo hoo for you Jacob.”
“Enough, and get back in position.” It was vastly inappropriate to complain about something so insignificant, considering everything that was happening. Even so, surreal or not, there was something about the gore that was just... more than simply horrific.
“Briana,” called Mary, “zombie coming this way.”
I heard a second shot, this time from Briana’s shotgun.
“More down there as well,” said Lizzy, “a whole lot more of the dead. The gang is starting to move, having to fight them…” She stood up. “Oh fucking Hell! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
I shot another of the enemy. I’d lost count of how many I’d killed. Even so, there were still plenty running about.
“What is it?” asked Briana. She jogged over to us. “Whoa!”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I put the rifle down and paused long enough to see for myself. It wasn’t just a few dozen zombies approaching. It wasn’t a hundred. There were thousands of them. Those in the front, largely spread out or in small groupings, shambled for the raiders nearest. Further back, rounding the bend in the meadow, came a wall of dead bodies. The people in the castle couldn’t see them, not yet.
“Briana, get on the radio and call Larry or anyone. Tell them to get out and run. They can’t be inside when the zombies reach them.”
The gang was splitting their attention between the shamblers and the castle. They gave no indication that they were considering making a run for it. More insanity. What was wrong with them?
“I can’t get anyone!” cried Briana. “Nobody’s answering!”
“Mary,” I asked, doing my best to remain calm, “is there anything coming our way?”
“Nothing that I can see.”
“I’m not shooting anymore. None of you either. Let’s move back out of sight.”
“We can’t leave them Jacob,” protested Briana.
I looked at her. Her pretty face was red and puffy. “What else can we do?”
“Not a fucking thing,” said Lizzy, answering for her. “We can’t do anything. This sucks on a totally fucking, shitty level.”
The assault on our settlement suddenly lessened as the bulk of the raiders turned to face the zombies, which were the more immediate threat. A few ran straight for the castle however. Maybe they hoped the survivors would let them in. Perhaps they thought to take it fast and defend from there. It didn’t matter. None made it to the gate.
The gang members formed up in what appeared to be a well rehearsed firing line and began to shoot the zombies. A few missed – no way to avoid that – but the majority appeared to be clean head shots. I now understood why they didn’t simply run. They’d clearly dealt with hordes of the things before. The monsters were falling fast, but the numbers were simply too great, and too many of the raiders were dead or wounded. They didn’t have the numbers they were used to. Then they began to run low on ammunition. Their supplies were back by their bikes and trucks, and those had already been swarmed.
Eventually, they began to break, but it was too late. Zombies on the fringes had pushed forward and in. Our enemies were largely surrounded. The only direction open to them led straight to the castle.
The regular semi trailer, not the gas tanker, suddenly started up. It roared forward, bouncing over the ground, plowing into the dead bodies that surrounded it. The thing made it less than fifty feet before it stopped. Now that they were aware of the occupant, the zombies climbed up, smashed the windows, and pulled someone from the cab. Later, we found remains, some still moving, jammed between tires and throughout the undercarriage.
“Why aren’t our people running?” cried Briana. “They have to get out of the castle! Can’t they see that?”
We watched as Simon and a few others tried to move the half destroyed animal trailer back into place. They were making progress, but it was far too slow. They would never get the gate blocked. Even if they did, it wouldn’t be enough.
“Mary, are we still secure? Can we get to the Jeeps if we have to drive out of here?”
“Yes, Jacob, we’re good.” She came up beside me. “I want to see.”
“I don’t,” remarked Briana. “I’ll watch our rear.”
I nodded, unable to take my eyes off the horror unfolding before us. With nowhere else to go, the last of the raiders headed for the castle, probably for the open forest behind it. They were gunned down. Our people, our friends, were taking no chances. Then they shifted their fire to the zombies. I could have screamed. I might have. Simon, Larry, all of them were making an epic mistake. They couldn’t defend against this.
“Let’s scoot back further,” I suggested.
“Yeah,” agreed Lizzy. “Maybe a whole lot further.”
The zombies passed the corrals, those still intact. The animals instinctively moved to the center, trying to avoid the monsters. The zombies, as always, ignored them. Then they reached the gate. It was too late to run now. A few tried to jump off the walls, but the dead were flowing around them, encircling as each tried to get as close as possible. I watched as Dean was torn apart. The gate created a bottleneck, and people fired round after round into it. The zombies just clambered over the bodies of their fallen. Finally, they were atop the walls, and that was the end.
“Some are heading our way,” said Mary. Like Briana, she was crying.
“Back to the Jeeps. We’ll leave and come back in the morning to see, whatever.”
* * *
That night, by moonlight, we saw a large number of zombies in the distance, moving south along the highway. We assumed it was the group that wreaked havoc in our forest and were likely correct. When we returned the next day, shortly after noon, there hadn’t been any shamblers in sight, not those capable of walking at least, but the meadow was a mess, strewn with debris and corpses.
Most of the animals were okay. One of the chicken coops was wrecked, with its former occupants fluttering about. The horses and goats were mostly fine as well, though some had run off. It was the same with the cows, except those which had gotten loose remained in the meadow, calmly eating the last of the fall grasses.
“There’s one,” said Briana, “by the trees.”
&nb
sp; “I’m going to shoot it. I never get to.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lizzy.
Mary spun to glare at her.
“No,” I said. “Mary’s turn.”
We should have allowed her to kill some a long time ago, if only to make sure she could pull the trigger.
Lizzy gave a reluctant nod, probably thinking of Lois, and we headed toward the zombie. It was stuck among some trees. The thing would take a few steps forward and bang into one. Then it would swing about and strike another.
“Oh,” whispered Briana, almost too softly to hear, “poor, poor Miranda.”
Blind during her all too short life, the woman was also blind as a zombie. Unable to see, she would slam into any obstacle before her, only to turn and try another direction. If she tripped over a bush or exposed root, Miranda would simply rise and continue on. She could hear us though, and like all the others she moved forward with arms outstretched.
“I don’t know if I can,” said Mary, biting back a sob. “I know I said, but…”
I shot Miranda in the head and watched her fall before walking toward the castle.
* * *
“What do you think we’ll find?” asked Briana, breaking the uneasy silence.
“Nothing good, I expect.” I took her hand in my own, feeling the engagement ring I’d given her. “The stores should be intact. We’ll have food, clothes, more than enough to see us through whatever we decide.”
We had to scramble over a pile of zombie bodies, which was more than a little disquieting. There wasn’t a sound inside the courtyard.
“Do you want to call for them,” asked Lizzy, her voice tired, “or should I do it?”
“Your choice,” I replied. I probably sounded little better.
“Come out zombies!” shouted Mary. She looked at us. “I just want it done with.”
“Is someone there?” came a faint voice.
There were survivors!
“Where are you?”
“The common hall.” The voice was muffled and sounded strained.
I barely managed to grab Lizzy’s shoulder before she was past me. “Wait. Someone needs to be on the wall to keep an eye out.”
“I’ll do it,” Briana hurried up the stairs and positioned herself near the wrecked gate.
With her maintaining watch, I moved inside with Lizzy beside me. Mary followed a few feet behind. It was shadowy without the lights – the generator had stopped – and I paused as my eyes adjusted.
“Where are you?” I asked.
I heard rustling and saw Steph peek out from the rafters above. Both arms were wrapped around a skinny boy. He was filthy and hollow eyed.
“How’d you get up there?” asked Mary.
They were twelve feet off the ground, kneeling on an eight inch thick beam. When Eric designed the hall, he wanted a long, though necessarily narrow room with a vaulted ceiling. The walls rose twelve feet, incorporating part of the castle’s outer wall, and then the roof started slanting inward to end in a peak twenty three feet off the ground. Since we cared more for speed than aesthetics, he had gone for ease of construction. The result was a series of strange alcoves where the beams were set or chimneys located. One of these had ended up large enough for an adult to sit in. Steph had been hiding there.
“The ladder,” she explained. “I took Johnny up here and kicked it over before the zombies got in. There were still people, real people, but there wasn’t enough room.”
“You saved a child,” I said quickly, as her expression grew more distraught. “You did right.”
We retrieved the ladder and helped both down. Steph was correct. The alcove could hide the two of them, if they stayed still and silent, but no more than that. If any others had joined in, they would have all been seen, and the zombies would have waited until they fell or died of dehydration. It was a choice between leaving friends behind or all dying. No one should have to make those.
“How old are you Johnny?” asked Mary sweetly.
He held up four fingers.
“You’re four?” she asked, to clarify.
“Yes.” His voice was faint.
“I’m thirteen. Since I’m older, I’ll help take care of you.” Mary took his hand. “Why don’t we go sit outside in the sun. The monsters are all gone. I’ll give you some candy even.”
“Mary’s good with children,” observed Steph.
I handed her a canteen. “Let’s pray it helps. The kid didn’t look good.”
“Hey,” announced Lizzy. “I so wanted to do it myself, but I can live with this too.”
She pointed at Cherie who was lying in the corner. Her clothes were in tatters, the little that remained, and her body torn apart. One arm was gone at the elbow. The other consisted only of a few strands of limp muscle and ligaments. Her stomach cavity had been ripped open, the internal organs jerked free, and both legs were hamstrung with deep bite marks all over the thighs and calves. Cherie’s beautiful face was still intact however, save some damage to the chin, left cheek, and a single missing ear.
Gray filmed eyes followed our movements. In her current state, the zombie could do nothing else.
“What happened when you left?” asked Steph. “Cherie said you attacked her when she went to tell you that her and Simon would be in charge, tried to kill her.”
“Lies.” I shook my head. “Such a waste. I’ll give you the details later, but Cherie was at fault. She murdered Lois.”
“We saw that Lois didn’t have a gun,” said Steph. “But… We’ll talk about it later I guess. Swap stories.”
Lizzy drew her knife and careful severed Cherie’s head from her body.
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, Steph, I’m putting this in a box for now. Later, I’ll show Mary, and we’ll drop it in the latrine, where it belongs, looking up at all the things it can never bite into, until something appropriately nasty falls into the open mouth.”
“That’ll make using the toilet somewhat distressing,” I pointed out, sickened by the idea.
“I’ll mark which one she’s under. Don’t worry. There’s going to be a big sign.”
* * *
We spent the early afternoon searching the castle from top to bottom. There were no other zombies inside, but we did discover a few suicides. Larry was the first. He had killed himself, placing the barrel of a gun beneath his chin. In one of the townhouses, in the back bedroom, we found two children, also with gunshots to the head. There was nothing to indicate who was responsible for this act of mercy. Most of our people were gone, presumably dead and reanimated. We found no trace of Simon or his son.
The search complete, we rounded up the loose animals and got them back in their corrals or coops. They received fresh water from the creek and some feed. We’d decide later what to do with them.
We used a second horse trailer to secure the entrance. The iron gate itself wasn’t in as bad condition as I first thought. The crossbar had been blown apart, and some of the bars were bent back. Mostly, the blast had shot through it and slammed into the original trailer instead. With a blow torch and some time, I could make repairs. For now, we were safe enough.
* * *
Shortly after sunset, Lizzy retired to the room she once shared with Lois. She’d talked briefly, mostly to state over and over that Cherie’s head belonged in the latrine and was going to stay there, unrotting, forever. Then the woman announced she was tired and going to bed. Briana and I turned in soon after, leaving Steph, Mary, and Johnny in the townhouse living room watching cartoons on my laptop – that was for the four year old’s benefit. The door was barred and heavily barricaded.
“What do you think Jacob?”
“About what?” I pulled her close.
She snuggled in. “Do we stay here or do we go somewhere else?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Bad memories here, lots of them, but it is secure and can be improved even more. Plenty of room now too, unfortunately. The bullets did some minor damage,
but we can patch that with concrete. We have the generator set up. It’s running again with tons of fuel in our tank. Add that tanker truck in the meadow, and we have enough for the Jeeps for years to come, probably until they break down on their own from use. Cleaning up the bodies in the meadow will be brutal, but that has to be done. Maybe we can pile them up and burn the lot, then bury what’s left. It’ll take weeks, at best.”
“Plenty of guns,” added Briana. “That’ll help with defense too.”
The other semi had been full of weapons, mostly military grade, and ammunition. It also contained boxes of knives and hatchets, and there was a portable torture chest, complete with scalpels, pliers, hack saws, and things of that nature, some of which was stained with blood.
“It’ll be winter soon,” I continued, “with lots of snow this far north on the Great Plains. If we move, we probably won’t be able to get anything set up nearly as good before we have to stop and wait for spring. I suppose we could head into Wyoming and look for the ranches people were evacuated to, but there’s no telling where they are or if they’re still functioning. It’s even colder there too. We really would risk getting stuck in the snow.”
“What about the military? We know they’re still alive, some of them.”
That was true. At the very least, we knew of surviving units in Japan, the Middle East, and plenty in the United States itself. However, we had no clue as to where they were physically located or how to get in touch with them. We could likely head for the large bases since they were being used as safe zones from the start, but considering our situation and the weather that seemed risky.
“Same problem as Wyoming.”
“So you want to stay here?” she pressed.
I sighed. “I think so. I don’t know if the others will want to, but, practically speaking, it is a good decision.”
Briana leaned over and kissed me. “Good. I don’t want to be traveling, not now that I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant?” I didn’t know what to say.
She kissed me a second time, a broad smile on her lips. “You’ll be a father sometime around the beginning of summer.”
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 1): Sanctuary Page 41
